Many households and businesses receive communication services delivered to a designated location via a set top box or a gateway device. The gateway device may be coupled to many different local devices, such as a telephone, a set top box, a television, a computer, or a wireless/mobile device. Service providers frequently deliver such services to a household or business via wired connections. The wired connections can often connect customer premises equipment (CPE), such as a telephone, a cable box, or a modem, to a service provider's equipment to facilitate communication between the CPE and the service provider. The wired connections may be physically connected to multiple physical connectors, such as telephone jacks, network jacks, or cable outlets, to connect multiple types of CPE. The installation and configuration of such equipment may be inconvenient. One approach to improve the delivery of communication services involves use of wireless equipment, such as a wireless residential gateway. Such wireless gateway devices may be used to support telephone services.
A problem has been encountered when a subscriber changes their physical address but retains their telephone number. In this situation, a service provider may not have access to the new physical address of the subscriber. During an emergency call (such as an E911 call), an emergency support service needs access to the caller's physical location. Since wireless gateway devices are identified by an internet protocol (IP) address and since an IP address does not uniquely define a physical location, there is a potential problem with locating a caller that uses voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service for emergency calls. As an example, if a customer signed up for service in one location but is accessing the service from another location, an emergency call may connect to the wrong public safety answering point, potentially delaying delivery of an emergency response.